811.111 Colleges 62/42
The Secretary of State to the German Ambassador (Von Prittwitz)
Excellency: I have the honor to refer to your Aide-Mémoire dated March 10, 1931, which you left at the Department on the occasion of your call on the same date, and to previous correspondence concerning the admission to the United States of German students under the auspices of the German Students’ Cooperative Association, and to quote for your information the contents of a communication, dated March 11, 1931, which has been received from the competent authorities.68
“Referring again to the temporary admission of German and other industrial students for the purpose of gaining experience through employment in this country … I beg to advise that after careful consideration it has been determined that on account of employment conditions in the United States the practice that has prevailed in the past shall be somewhat modified for the time being. The present rule relating to the admission of ‘student laborers’ is in part as follows:
“‘In pursuance of the provision of section 3 of the act of February 5, 1917,69 authorizing the bureau and the department to prescribe conditions “to control and regulate the admission and return of otherwise inadmissible aliens applying for temporary admission,” employers of skilled labor desirous of training aliens in their establishments may be granted such privilege by the department, provided the prospective “student laborers” are admissible in every other respect except that they migrate under contract, and provided a bond is furnished for each such alien in the penalty of not less than $500, guaranteeing that the alien will be employed in no other than a student capacity while within the United States and will leave this country immediately upon the conclusion of his course of training’.”
“Under a liberal construction of this rule student laborers have been admitted in considerable numbers even when such admission was solely for their own benefit and not because their services were needed by employers in the United States.
“In view of employment conditions in the United States, however, it is not believed that the liberal policy referred to should be continued and for the time being the admission of so-called student laborers will be limited to cases in which employers in the United States on their own initiative seek to bring in such students for the purpose indicated in the above quoted rule. This order, however, will not apply to industrial students who may be sent to the United States by foreign governments in accordance with existing agreements or understandings in that regard.”
Accept [etc.]